I acquired a boat this summer that has the following components.
2 Smart Lithium Battery 12V 160AH batteries,
2 SmartSolar Chargers MPPT 100/30,
1 3000 watt mulitplus inverter charger,
There is a total of 400W of solar panels, 200 are dedicated to the Lithium house batteries and 200 dedicated to the starting / accessory batteries which are lead acid.
The boat is to be hauled out over the next couple of weeks and will be shrink wrapped for the winter (5 to 6 Months). There is no shore power being supplied to the boat during the winter. We have full on winter where I am.
My plan is to power down the inverter charger and disconnect the Lithium Batteries from the system and bring them home for the winter . The lead acid batteries will be disconnected from the boat but left on board.
As the MPPT Chargers willl not be connected to any batteries is there anything I need to do with them?
The lithium batteries will be at 100% SOC do I have to discharge them to any specific level before disconnecting them from the system.
thanks in advance. I hope I don’t sound like to much of a Newbie.
I recently asked questions about solar pannels trying to stuff energy in an already full battery. Seems that the created energy will just turn into heat, which should be focused on the solar panels themselfs. I’ve been told that it won’t do a thing to the MPPT charger.
Maybe look up the spec sheets for your specific batteries. I’ve kept my LFP batteries at whatever charge they were last time I charged/used them. They will discharge themselfs ever so slowly anyways.
If you have very low temperatures, I would also remove the lead acid batteries, particularly if these are wet cell types. Even if they are AGM, and the temperature is low enough the acid may crystalise. If the Lithiums are 100% charged, (Above 3.3V per cell) then I would discharge them to about 75%. (or to 3.3V per cell). See the manufacturer’s recommendation for storage, if available.
Thanks for your response. Over the years I have not had any problems with the standard batteries being left on board over the winter. So long as they are fully charged, electrolyte has been tested, and disconnected the weather the winter just fine. Your recommendation to discharge the lithium batteries is consistent with other information I have found.